Making Sense of EEOICPA Data
EEOICPA is a data-dense program which makes it very difficult to parse out what is actually happening. How can the public tell whether claims are being paid appropriately if they can't understand the data? One way is to use DOL's data and view it in graphs. EECAP has been viewing EEOICPA data through graphs since September 2011. Because a graph is pictorial rather than numbers it is much easier to understand what is really happening as opposed to spending hours poring over numbers looking for patterns. EECAP does the pouring for you!
DOL suspects that it may be having trouble with its statistics webpages and is investigating. They are keeping EECAP updated on their progress. For the time being it is a good idea to remember that there may be errors in DOL's EEOICPA reported numbers, so EECAP's graphs may change. We'll keep you updated as we learn more. However, until we know for sure what is going on we will continue to report on the numbers DOL publishes.
How is EEOICPA working?
Recently, EECAP has pulled together other statistics and
developed graphs which provide an easier overall view of
the claim decisions. One thing we thought would be
interesting to view is how many initial claims have been
filed and paid for each of the DOL
Resource Centers or
District Offices between December 1, 2012 and February
28, 2013.
Here are the same dates for claims filed and paid for each of the Resource Centers. It's important to keep an eye on how many claims each Resource Center is filing because one of the important functions of the Resource Centers is to file claims for workers and survivors.
Part E Payment Rates at All-time Low of 15% for 2012
The EEOICPA 2014 Congressional Budget Justification lists only 968 Part E payments to claimants although they estimated that 4,040 would be paid. The numbers from the DOL Statistics Website for 2011 and 2012 show that 2,622 Part E Claims were paid! What is going on here? Why is there such a big difference in the numbers DEEOIC is reporting?
Part B and Part E Payment Rates Dropped in October
We began monitoring Part B and Part E payment rates after receiving reports from claimants and advocates that it had become much harder to get a claim paid under Part E, the chemical toxin part of EEOICPA. EECAP, using DOL's own statistics, took another look at the payment rates at the end of October 2012 and found that both the Part B and E payment rates had dropped again in 20012. Part E claims are now being paid at an alarmingly low 17% of claims filed.
EECAP asked a DOL official about the apparent decline in payment rates on November 8, 2012. DOL did not have an answer but agreed with EECAP that some of the problem may lie with the system change-over earlier this year. EECAP will be meeting with DOL on this matter in January and will let you know as soon as we know more. Meanwhile, here are charts showing the drop in DOL claims payment rates.
Using DOL's statistics it appears that Part E claims payment rates dropped drastically in 2012.
Part B claims payment rates also dropped in 2012.
In June EECAP used DOL data to chart how many claimants have been paid under Part E from 2005-2011. You will see that the number of Part E payments peaked in 2008 and has declined ever since, even when the number of claims filed increased. The high number of initial claims for the 2005-2006 is because there was a huge backlog of Part E claims when DOL took over the program in 2005.
This graph shows the Part E payment rate compared to the number of claims filed:
The second graph shows the decline in Part E payments more clearly:
The following graph shows an odd spike in data that occurred in April-May 2012. It shows up in all the different District Offices. The Part E (Toxic Chemicals) figures for Cleveland and Jacksonville District Offices look especially strange. Note that some of the numbers are negative.
